The Employees' Association of the German School: Recent History Steffi Colopy On Behalf of the Trustee Council of the Employees Association of the German School of Washington DC.
Many hundreds of well educated graduates of the German School prospering in numerous professions around the globe having been strongly influenced by the nurturing, guidance and careful instruction of the school2s faculty and staff. Some of them were here for less than two years, others for their entire pre-university education. Then as now graduates are routinely admitted to the best universities in Europe. Comparable success in the Untied States includes Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn, Duke, MIT, Cal Tech and the University of Chicago, a fair metric of educational quality.
German government. The school2s unique structure and its partial sponsorship by the German government contributed from the beginning to ambiguity about which and how regulations and laws apply. Frequent changes in the composition of the board brought corresponding shifts in management agendas and personal notions of academic priorities. These ambiguities contributed to a lack of clarity and consistency, spawning misunderstandings, resistance to capricious initiatives, academic interference and abuses of authority. Consequently, employees2 anxieties have colored much of the school2s history.
The employees are the longest serving unit of the school since its founding, the enduring guardians of its physical and academic structure. Not surprisingly, the institutional memory of the school resides primarily in its employees, dedicated individuals who sustain the school2s unique mission. Besides its routine duties as the representative organization of the school2s employees, the Employees Association has been stalwart in promoting and defending pedagogic excellence and academic integrity against occasionally intrusive influences, regularly reaffirming its founding principles, chief of which is the commitment to the educational excellence and the benefit of the students.
The most significant event in the EA2s existence was the decision of the US National Relations Board in 1982 ordering the board to recognize the EA as the legitimate representative of all of the school2s nonsupervisory personnel. Echoes of those turbulent days and those same issues over the last six years were again intensifying. Happily for the school, the most urgent ones were prudently resolved in 2010 when newly elected board leaders along with the EA representatives together worked through the flashpoints and put their relationship on a professional, respectful and cooperative footing. In this way the EA and the board reaffirmed in practical terms their commitment to the long term quality and success of the school and the well being of its students.
The relationship between the EA and the school2s management often has been turbulent, largely as a function of the frequent rotation of elected board members and educational leaders designated by the
We look forward to the school2s great success in the next fifty years.
"Board president, Jutta Frankfurter, greets EA head, Steffi Colopy, following the signing of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement on 1/11/11 at the school. The long awaited break-through agreement stabilized and strengthened cooperation between the Employees Association and the leadership of the school."
Fünfzig Jahre Deutsche Schule
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